perl -e '$_=shift;X while s/\\text(i|b)[tf]\{([^{}]*)\}/<$1>$2<\/$1>/g
+;print;' 'abc abc abc \textit{abc abc} abc \textit{abc abc \textbf{ab
+c \textbf{abc abc} abc} abc} abc.'

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Ok, I understand all of this except for the 'x while.' I understand that x is a repetition operator but I've always seen it written like: '"a" x 80.' However here, there is nothing on the left hand side. Could you explain what it does? I'm guessing it repeats the substitution so that it can find the nested cases but I'd be interested in knowing how it works.

It's not the (lower-case) x operator, it's an (upper-case) unquoted string. Its purpose is to do nothing, but allow there to be a while loop. All the action of the while loop takes place inside its condition.

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Caution: Contents may have been coded under pressure.

Condition for while, another form would be:

'1 while' or 'A while' or ...


;)

Mago
mago@rio.pm.org

Thanks for the help everyone, I've also found you can write it like this as well:

while ( <code goes here> ) {}
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The important but being that there's nothing in the {}. This gives us the original one-liner broken up to this:

#!/usr/bin/perl
my $string = 'abc abc abc \textit{abc abc} abc \textit{abc abc \textbf
+{abc \textbf{abc abc} abc} abc} abc.';

while ($string =~ s/\\text(i|b)[tf]\{([^{}]*)\}/<$1>$2<\/$1>/g) {}
print $string;
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Or you could take out the {} and add a 0, X, or whatever in front of the while (...)